What the late, great James Connolly got right about socialism and oligarchies

I've written here before to mention that I perform lengthy sets of Irish folk music around St. Patrick's Day*, and there are quite a few of those popular pub songs that include (well-deserved, IMHO) shout-outs to James Connolly, a stalwart champion of workers' rights who was executed by British soldiers after the 1916 Easter Rising. As I get older, I haven't found myself getting more conservative, like the Boomers told me I would; instead, I find myself realizing more and more that James Connolly was right about a damn lot of things.

One of my favorite writings of his which I find I reference in casual conversation more than I should probably admit is this piece on the differences between "state monopolies" and "socialism." Originally published in the June 10, 1899 issue of Workers Republic, this short essay impressively articulates the differences between centralized government control of a society, and what it means to actually put that ownership into collective public hands.

Socialism properly implies above all things the co-operative control by the workers of the machinery of production; without this co-operative control the public ownership by the State is not Socialism it is only State capitalism. The demands of the middle-class reformers, from the Railway Reform League down, are simply plans to facilitate the business transactions of the capitalist class. State Telephones to cheapen messages in the interest of the middle class who are the principal users of the telephone system; State Railways to cheapen carriage of goods in the interest of the middle-class trader; State-construction of piers, docks, etc.